4-12-09, 10:12 am
Original source: The Atlanta Progressive News
(APN) ATLANTA - Several dozen Atlantans gathered at the First Iconium Baptist Church in East Atlanta Saturday, April 04, 2009, to hear expert testimony on and ask questions about home foreclosures and predatory lending.
Organizers, which included the Georgia Rural Urban Summit (GRUS), the Metro Atlanta Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), the Atlanta-North Georgia Labor Council, and 28 other organizations, made available mortgage counselors and legal staffers to answer individual questions and concerns.
The forum was an opportunity to provide information, analysis, and a variety of perspectives; however, no plans for collective action came out of the forum.
Milt Tambor, Metro Atlanta DSA Chairman, opened the forum. 'This fight against foreclosures has to do with the larger issue of economic justice,' he said, noting United States citizens need universal health care, living wages, and the right to organize.
'When you have such depth of inequality, there is something wrong with that and we need to end that,' Tambor said.
Larry Pellegrini, Executive Director of the Georgia Rural Urban Summit, noted the lack of action on progressive issues during the 2009 Session of the Georgia General Assembly.
'You can't turn to your General Assembly and you can't turn to any other [leaders] that you might turn to,' Pellegrini said. 'We wound up with almost none of the priorities that the neighborhood needed or wanted.'
Pellegrini also sought to dispel what he sees as falsehoods about the foreclosure crisis. 'If you listen to the issue of predatory lending...they're telling you it's your fault,' he said.
William J. Brennan, Program Director of Atlanta Legal Aid Society's Home Defense Program, built on that theme.
'Banks are making predatory lending right out of their branches,' Brennan said. 'These giant banks are stealing people's homes.'
Atlanta Legal Aid's Home Defense Program provides referrals and legal representation to home owners who have been victimized by foreclosures as well as home equity and home purchase scams.
The program specializes in assisting low-income and disabled clients, as well as senior homeowners who were approved for mortgage loans they cannot afford on fixed incomes.
Brennan argued lenders made the mistake earlier this decade of grossly overcharging on interest, turning homes into collateral, and targeting people for abusive lending practices based on race, sex, and age.
'If this isn't a civil rights issue, I don't know what is,' Brennan said.
Brennan later rehashed how big banks, lenders, and insurance giants led the economy into a tailspin, throwing out familiar buzz phrases like 'sub prime loans,' 'toxic assets,' and insurance for investors called 'credit default swaps.'
'What a name,' Brennan joked. 'It's just a phrase begging not to be understood. This was just nonsense to come up with insurance like this.'
Brennan slammed Republicans for blaming the foreclosure crisis on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, calling the claim 'a lie, lie, lie.' He also chastised Wall Street firms who helped lead the economy into a tailspin for rewarding its executives with lavish bonuses.
State Sen. Vincent Fort (D-Atlanta), a long time champion of anti-predatory lending legislation, delivered the harshest statements of the forum.
'I'm outraged with what the banks have done to our country,' Fort said. 'We ought to be outraged as Americans.'
Fort, after nearly a decade of work, led a successful effort to pass anti-predatory lending legislation in the Georgia General Assembly in 2002 only to have the legislation reversed the next year.
Fort said the actions of the General Assembly then and now have led to a growing disparity between 'the haves and the have nots, the rich and the ripped off.'
Michael Rich, an Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of the Office of University-Community Partnerships at Emory University, presented charts and graphs mapping the foreclosure crisis in Metro Atlanta.
Rich first presented figures showing the number of subprime loans in DeKalb, Fulton, Cobb, Clayton, and Gwinnett Counties began to skyrocket in 2002.
Then he presented figures on foreclosures from May 2003 to May 2008 in the same region. A time-lapse sequence revealed foreclosures occurring mainly inside Atlanta early in the period. 'Most people thought this was a city problem,' Rich said.
As the sequence progressed, the red and orange splotches representing foreclosures quickly spread to areas outside I-285 around May 2008.
'This problem has so many layers and dimensions to it,' Rich said, who then posed the questions, 'How do we think about neighborhoods that have been impacted and how do we bring those back from the brink?'
'We may need to go down to one of those banks that have $25 billion of your money and put some people out on the street,' Fort suggested --Jonathan Springston is a Senior Staff Writer for The Atlanta Progressive News, and is reachable is jonathan@atlantaprogressivenews.com.
